September 16, 1994

1030 hours. We start for the border. The hotel manager, another of Stephan's contacts, has supplied a van and driver. The four-hour journey is bumpy. I make my sound gear serviceable and easy to assemble for shooting on the run. Tim dozes in the front seat next to the driver, his Ikegami cradled in his lap. The landscape is flat, dotted with scrubby bushes and aloes. Soil color changes from red clay to gray to chalk. Most of the rivers are dry or reduced to a chalky trickle. We follow a single stretch of telegraph wire for miles, occasionally happening upon shantytowns. In every town kids with distended bellies swarm the streets. In every town a woman squats on the stoop of a caille (a thatched hut) holding a naked baby. It's an image that lingers—there is something so surrendered about these women sitting in the heat.

We are an hour from the border when Stephan delicately mentions that he has three bulletproof vests in his baggage. 'I think we should take every conceivable precaution.' 'Oh sure.' I agree, sort of relieved but apprehensive. Tim says nothing. There are longer silences now. Black-edged clouds bank up on the horizon in readiness for the afternoon shower.

1530 hours. We traverse some salt flats, skirt a grim, metallic lake and suddenly we are at the Dominican Haitian border. Jimani, the border post is a low shack with a couple of fig trees shading the doorways. Beyond the shack two guards patrol a pair of heavy gates in a high chain-link fence. On the Haitian side more guards, a quarrelsome gang of porters, and an old woman selling fruit. She sits still, watching everything, legs stretched out before her, hands in her lap, paw-paws and lemons on a dingy cloth beside her.

On the Dominican side, chickens and goats mingle with a knot of 'journos' and their gear. Two Red-Berets, Canadian soldiers, oversee events with good humor. They are part of the International Observer Corps. Haiti is under embargo and they must scrutinize all movement across the border.

It 's hot as Hades. ZDF (the German public TV network) and ABC TV Units roll in with a convoy of gear. We get through the Dominican customs formalities easily, but unless the bus from the Citadel Tourist Agency arrives with our names on its list, we will be driving back to Santa Domingo tonight. At five-thirty in the evening the first bus arrives and a suave young man alights with a sheaf of documents. Clamoring journos immediately beset him. Stephan elbows his way in to discover that a company called Chatelaine has taken over from Citadel and our names are not on their list—but will be tomorrow.

Disappointed, we stand at the chain-link fence that separates us from the buses on the Haitian side. A scuffle breaks out-angry yells and threatening gestures. A CBS chap is backing away from an ugly crowd. They want money for carrying the mountains of gear across the line. Bad vibes until dollars change hands. Stephan hovers awhile, anxious, because if we don't get across tomorrow either we might miss the invasion altogether. It's Friday and he is convinced the Americans will invade on Saturday night. But we have no choice, we have to stay in Dominica another night and try again in the morning.

We give a ride to Jeff, a beefy NBC camera operator. An old-timer. He wasn't on the list either. He natters on about how he spent three 'dull' weeks in Haiti during the 'Cuba event.' He's back again to cover the 'invasion'. He, like Max, is full of advice: 'when the invasion starts, don't leave your hotel at night during the curfew—don't risk it. Where are you staying by the way? Holiday Inn? Good. You're right in the thick of things. The military HQ is a block away and the Presidential Palace opposite. Wait until it's light and the attack is over because there will definitely be some killing. Try not to be on the ground floor of the Holiday Inn. That's the first place the Tontons Macoute will head for to take out a few whiteys. You got bulletproof vests? Good. Wear them. Go into the bathroom, barricade it with mattresses and furniture-whatever's to hand and get into the shower cubicle—it's got three walls. Lie flat on the deck until it's all over.' We are listening hard. Flies buzz over our already rotting corpses. Thanks Jeff. We book into a small family inn. Cold water only. Overhead fan, noisy but effective. It vies with a rattling air conditioner.

September 17, 1994

I wake at 5.30 and brave a cold shower. Stephan looks ashen this morning. He'd been dreaming, he said, about a volcano blasting off. 0830 hours. Back at Jimani. A hellish day! A day that erupts with combustible anger as two or three gangs of porters compete for the baggage that arrives without end. The traffic bumps and grinds all day, network after network, affiliate after affiliate, and the many lesser outfits and individuals who check in with generators, lights, cameras and editing gear. Dominican porters bear the equipment across a wasteland of broken beer bottles and plastic to the dank shed that interrupts the border fence. Here Haitian porters take over the carrying. Each gang has a 'heavy' who bullies and cajoles money out of the hapless, incoming crews. Five dollars for each porter, and the stewards try to include as many hands as they can get away with. As the heat intensifies many fights break out Oddly, no one is hurt.

At last - two Chatelaine buses. Yes, our names are on the list! We have endured eight hours of the awful heat and racket. Stefan pays a tidy fortune to four porters to get our gear onto a van marked 'Florida Fruit' and we scramble onto the bus next to it. Another hour passes before we're off. There is a customs stop, a head count, several checkpoints and a precipitate sunset. Now we're into curfew. That means stopping at a military post to pick up a pass. Another hour and a half. A whisper passes amongst the ranks. A Finnish crew of two is hiding beneath the seats of one of the coaches. Some people are disgruntled by the information. If the Finns get caught it could be bad for all of us. They do not get caught, thank God. When, at last, we drive into Port-au-Prince, it is midnight.

The Chatelaines bustle around us. It appears that they played a part in getting the Finnish crew across, probably bribed the border guards who searched the buses. M. Chatelaine is a 'Negro' mulatto, pale, sophisticated in that Parisian way and wears just enough gold jewelry, a signet ring and a fine wrist chain that catches the light. Mme. Chatelaine is 'Negro-Negro', I would guess—a shade or two darker than her husband. They have two charming sons. One is Pippo, the suave young man with the list. He displays much care around his clients, giving each his full attention. He's softening us for a bombshell: each traveler must pay five hundred dollars cash. That's the price for crossing the border. M. Chatelaine explains in his soft voice that he's had to grease many palms along the way and the fee is not at all excessive. There is some grumbling among the journalists and crews but they're tired and fork up. Some wag nicknames the Chatelaines the 'Charlatans' and the name sticks.

Stephan, Tim and I wait for the Florida Fruit van with our equipment. Someone says it has been held at a checkpoint and will be along later. We decide to head for the Holiday Inn that is just a few blocks away. Of course we are nervous. It's curfew time and the streets are dark and ominously quiet. Eric, a minion of the Chatelaines, comes to our rescue. He's a flashy operator with excellent English. He leads us down several alleys until a police truck flashes its headlights at us. Eric speaks quickly in Creole to the suspicious officers — two of them — and they offer us a lift to the Holiday Inn. I am full of trepidation. I've read Graham Greene. But Stephan and Tim seem unconcerned so I follow like a lamb. The cops do drop us off at the Holiday Inn but alas, our reservations have not been confirmed. After a dust-up with the hotel manager, Eric suggests The Park Hotel. It's much cheaper and right next door to the Holiday Inn.

The Park Hotel is straight out of Graham Greene! French colonial, dilapidated, a large verandah cluttered with plant life and wickerwork. A yellowy light pervades, barely enough to see by. Inside, two adjoining rooms with high ceilings and overhead fans that are not working make up the reception and lounge. M. Assad, the owner, is quick to warn us that there will be power failures — 'you'll need a candle' — and cold water. M. Assad seems reluctant to have us stay. His wife, Elsie, shuts him up. She can see we don't give a shit about candles and cold water—we're too exhausted. I remember that we didn't get breakfast and there was no chance to get a snack along the way. No caffeine. No wonder I have a splitting headache. Monsieur Assad leads us through an archway of magnificent purple bougainvillea, into a run-down quadrangular garden around an empty swimming pool. My first reaction is terror. What a perfect pit in which to throw bodies: the Americans invade tonight. The Tontons Macoute, now the Attachés, storm the hotel to machine gun whiteys. It is a last ditch revenge effort. They toss our bleeding corpses into the Graham Greene swimming pool before the American paratroopers can get to us.

My room is bare but for a flimsy bed and a lightweight dresser. No chair, no table. No lock on the door, just a hook and eye. The hinges will never hold up against the boots of the Attachés. There is only one wall to the shower-dirty plastic curtains make up the other three.

Our duties are not yet done. We must sneak back to the Chatelaines and see if the truck with our gear has arrived. Is it safe? Eric, who is still waiting in the lobby hoping to be hired as interpreter, assures us it will be OK. Outside the Hotel he yells at a couple of street urchins to accompany us. Tim escapes to the Holiday Inn to make phone calls. Stephan and I break the curfew again, not because we're reckless or unafraid, but because we are past caring.

The truck has been and gone in our absence! The bloody last straw. Nobody quite knows where. It's all too much. We will have to deal with it in the morning. The Chatelaine's driver walks us back to the Park Hotel. The power is out now and back in my room I light a candle. I cannot bear to wash. Anyway the water is cold. And the fans don't work. And there are mosquitoes. Not to mention 'the invasion.' I collapse into a deep sleep. The loud report of a gun. The other side of my bedroom wall reverberates. I'm sitting up, stark awake, heart banging against my ribs. The candle is guttering, I forgot to blow it out. Glance at my wristwatch: three o'clock in the morning. Shit. The Invasion. I try to get up but I'm paralyzed. Listen for sounds — anything — try to quell the thud of jackboots inside my rib cage. I hear nothing else. Outside there is a stillness dense with white noise. I don't know how many moments pass before I can move again. I blow the candle out. It's a pathetic gesture but I feel safer in darkness. 'They' might not find me. I pray that Tim and Stephan will come looking for me. But they do not. I have a flash from my childhood. I am eight years old. In Sunday school, I change into John Jay Ferris, the boy with the lolling head. I'm in his wheelchair near the window, head hanging backwards as always; my eyes stare out at the blue, free, sky. I lie awake until first light, until I know I am safe.